Foe: Part 1 Summary & Analysis

“At last I could row no further,” Susan Barton declares—so adrift at sea, arms tired from rowing, she jumps in the water and swims. She eventually makes it to an island, where she collapses, petticoats and all. Before she can sleep, though, she looks up to see “a Negro man” (Friday).

 Susan is hopeful that this man will save her life, but when she asks him for water in Portuguese, he does not respond. Immediately, noticing the spear by Friday’s side, Susan begins to fear that he is a cannibal; when he touches her skin, Susan panics that he is imagining what it would be like to eat her. No such thing happens, though, and eventually, Susan mimes her thirst so that Friday understands.

Friday leads Susan across the island, up a steep hill. At one point, Susan gets a thorn in her ankle, and Friday (who is shorter than Susan) has to carry her on his back. Susan notices that Friday can walk over these thorns without seeming to be in pain. Neither of them speaks the entire journey.

Susan describes the island, which she makes clear has nothing to do with the romantic places described in “travellers’ tales.” On this island, there are ants like the ones Susan encountered in Bahia, plus seaweed that gives off a terrible stench. The bushes are “drab” and do not flower, though there are all kinds of animals (apes, lizards, birds, and dolphins). Susan reflects that if animals were enough for her, she could be content—“but who,” she wonders, “accustomed to the fullness of human speech, can be content with caws and chirps”?

At the top of the hill, Susan can look out on the whole ocean, where she notices the boat that brought her to this island sailing away. She realizes that she is in a small encampment, and that another European man is present. She speaks to this new stranger in Portuguese, and he informs her that he speaks English. Susan comments on the man’s strange garb: long underwear like watermen wear on the Thames, and a tall, conic, fur cap. Meanwhile, Friday brings Susan water, and Susan drinks it greedily.

Susan explains that the crew of the nearby ship mutinied and killed their captain, casting her adrift with the captain’s dead body. Recalling the spear stuck through the captain’s eye, Susan breaks down into tears. The stranger watches her, and Susan tells her audience that he is “of course the Cruso I told you about.” 

Susan now goes into detail about the encampment. In the center of two big rocks, Cruso had built himself a hut. Beyond the hut, Cruso had erected a leather barrier, fencing off a triangle of land that he calls his “castle.” Within the fence, Cruso grows wild lettuce, which Susan explains is—along with fish and eggs—the only thing they eat on the island.

Cruso gives Susan a handmade needle to help her take the thorn out of her foot. While she extracts it, Susan tells Cruso her story: she was born to a Frenchman and an Englishwoman, and she was raised in England. Two years earlier, her only daughter had been kidnapped and brought to the New World. Susan traveled to Bahia, Brazil, to find her daughter, but was given no help from the Brazilian government and so failed in her mission.

At last, Susan had given up, and had booked passage on a merchant’s ship back to Lisbon. But ten days into that journey, the crew had mutinied, stranding Susan here. She reflects that she does not why she was cast away by the crew, other than that people often start to hate those they have abused.

Having finished her story, Susan now becomes Cruso’s “second subject”; the first is Friday, whom Susan now knows is Cruso’s manservant. Susan tells her reader that she wishes she could supply Cruso’s backstory, but the stories he told her were so contradictory that she thinks even Cruso himself does not know what is real and what is fantasy.

Sometimes, Cruso says he was born rich, while other times he claims to be an orphan who had been captured by Moors. He also tells different stories about Friday: he says sometimes that Friday was a “little slave-boy” when they met, sometimes that Friday was a cannibal. Susan fears that the cannibals will one day return for Friday, and Cruso acknowledges that this is a possibility.

While they eat, Susan wonders aloud why Cruso has never tried to escape. Cruso explains that they are hundreds of miles from Brazil, the nearest shore—and even if they did get to Brazil, he argues, it is “full of cannibals.” Privately, Susan begins to understand that life on an island has narrowed Cruso’s worldview, and that he will never have any real desire to leave.

Cruso offers Susan his bed, but she refuses, instead sleeping on a nearby mat. Though she struggles to fall asleep, haunted by her change in circumstances, she eventually grows calm. When she wakes the next morning, it is raining hard. For the next several days, the weather alternates endlessly back-and-forth between wind and rain. More than the loneliness or the strange diet, Susan feels that the wind is unbearable.

In addition to the encampment, Cruso has made himself several tools. One of these is a knife, saved from his own shipwreck, which he tells Susan to use for protection against the apes; though the apes avoid Friday and himself, Cruso thinks they will not fear Susan because she is a woman. Susan is skeptical of this. The other tools, wooden bowls and a spade, have all been crafted from the wood and stone on the island.  Susan laments that Cruso does not have better tools with which to plan an escape.

There is also a stove in Cruso’s hut, and some treated ape skins. Tellingly, however, there is no journal or pen. Susan does not understand why Cruso does not want to write things down, and thus preserve a record of his time on the island; after all, as she points out, memory is faulty. But Cruso insists that “nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering.”

This logic upsets Susan, who insists that without the inclusion of everyday details, “life begins to lose its particularities”—how could an outsider believe Cruso’s story is true and his own if he does not write down the details? Susan even suggests some ways that Cruso could make writing implements, but Cruso stands firm, telling her that the only thing he wants to leave behind are his terraces and walls.

At night, Susan still sleeps near Cruso, using ape skins as blankets. She does not like the smell of the ape skins or the sound of Cruso grinding his teeth, but Susan is proud that her time in Bahia has taught her to be less “dainty.” Sometimes, she dreams of the murdered ship captain.

One day, Susan explores the island against Cruso’s wishes. When she returns, he is angry at her for disobeying him—but she replies that she is “a castaway, not a prisoner.” Later that evening, Susan asks Cruso for a needle and thread to make shoes, but he tells her to be patient. Days pass, and Susan still does not have any shoes.

A while later, Susan tries telling Friday to bring more wood. Friday stands, but does nothing, and Cruso explains that he only knows the word “firewood,” not the word “wood.” Cruso also tells Susan that Friday knows very few words of English, which upsets Susan, who thinks that language is the key to civilization and happiness. Instead of answering, Cruso just instructs Friday to sing, which he does.  

Cruso then shocks Susan by saying that Friday cannot speak—he has had his tongue cut out by “slavers.” Susan wonders why anyone would do this, and Cruso gives three possibilities: maybe the slavers view tongue as a delicacy, maybe they didn’t want to hear Friday cry in grief, or maybe they were punishing him for his cannibalism. Susan is frightened that Cruso seems to be smiling as he says all of this.

Susan becomes obsessed by Friday’s mutilated tongue, and she finds it increasingly difficult to be around him without thinking about the horrible act. She wonders why Providence has dealt Friday so terrible a hand, and Cruso replies that “if Providence were to watch over all of us…who would be left to pick the cotton and cut the sugarcane?”

Tired of waiting for Cruso, Susan eventually makes herself shoes. Unsurprisingly, Cruso is annoyed by this, and the two get into a fight. After a few hours, Susan remembers that her position on the island is precarious, and she apologizes to Cruso. That night, she feels some measure of real joy when she begins to feel the ground swaying beneath her, proof that she is on an island.

Now that Susan has shoes, she starts walking all over the island, feeling herself slip into a kind of “waking slumber.” Though Susan sometimes pushes for change—for example, suggesting candles so that they can have light after the sun goes down—Cruso will not stand for any of it. Susan begins to crave a space that feels like hers, even though she knows that the island does not actually belong to Cruso.

A month into Susan’s stay, Cruso comes back to the hut feeling ill (“it is the old fever that came with me,” he explains). For 12 days and nights, Susan take care of Cruso, who is often overcome by fits of raving. Meanwhile, Friday avoids the hut, only catching and scaling fish for Susan and playing his flute. Once, Susan gets so sick of hearing the flute play that she grabs it out of Friday’s hands, much to his surprise.

Cruso seems to be feeling better, until a giant storm sweeps the island, and he descends back into fever. Between Cruso’s ravings—he keeps saying the word “Massa”—and Friday’s flute-playing, Susan begins to feel like she is in “a madhouse.” As the rain starts to slow down, Susan stretches her body across Cruso’s, hoping to keep him warm and save his life.

That night, Susan wakes to find that Cruso is touching her sexually, which makes her think of the Portuguese captain. Susan considers resisting, but then feels bad that Cruso has not had sexual relations with a woman in so many years, so she gives in. She does not know whether or not this was the right choice.

Days later, Susan is out for a walk when she notices an unusual occurrence. Though she has seen Friday on the water fishing many times, she has never seen him go out to sea for non-fishing purposes. But now, he is spreading petals on the water, which to Susan is the “first sign that a spirit or soul…stirred beneath that dull and unpleasing exterior.”

When Susan pushes Cruso to go back into his wrecked ship and look for tools, Cruso refuses. Instead, he remains dead set on building out his terraces: patches of ground that have been levelled and cleared and reinforced with stone. But to Susan’s surprise, Cruso does not plan to plant anything on his terraces. Rather, the planting is reserved for future visitors to the island. Cruso proudly tells Susan that though he is a castaway by circumstance, he is not a castaway “at heart.”

Susan grows frustrated by Cruso’s irrational behavior, and by his refusal to write or look for tools or even have a real conversation with her. She reflects that even if Cruso is to be rescued, his story will be boring and unsatisfying to the masses, who are hungry for more exciting adventure tales. For a time, Susan goes into a “lethargy,” tying furs around her face so she cannot hear and moaning in discontent.

Eventually, Susan comes out of her despair, and is able to return to life with Cruso and Friday. Though Cruso never touches her again, she tells her reader that if she had stayed on the island much longer, she would have wanted to have a child with Cruso—she could not bear this lonely silence much longer.

Susan also begins to become curious about what kind of laws exist on the island. When she asks Cruso about it, he insists that there are no laws. Susan fears that without laws, they could all be cruel or tyrannical to each other—yet they are not. Cruso explains that he does not believe in any sort of punishment, which causes Susan to reflect that perhaps being on the island forever is punishment enough.

Sometimes, however, Susan views Cruso with more admiration. After all, if her first days on the island were so difficult, how terrible must it have been for Cruso? She is impressed that he can find so much meaning from sea and sky, which to her feel empty.

About a year after Susan’s arrival on the island, Cruso becomes sick again—and this time, his illness seems deadly. But as if by fate, a ship headed to Bristol (the “John Hobart”) passes by the island. The travelers agree to take Susan and Cruso back to England, and Susan ensures that they do not forget Friday, either.

While the crew looks for Friday, Susan and the captain, Captain Smith, share a delicious dinner. The captain suggests that Susan should write down her story, as there has never been a female castaway. But Susan assures him that her time on the island was boring, not good enough for a book to be written.

At last, Friday is found and brought to the ship. Friday is confused and afraid of these new circumstances, but Susan does her best to comfort him, making her voice warm even though they do not share language. Susan sleeps in Cruso’s cabin, and she pleads that Friday should sleep on the floor in front of the cabin: he would rather sleep there, she argues, “than on the softest bed in Christendom.”

The doctors come every day to let Cruso’s blood and try to cure his fever, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Captain Smith persuades Susan to tell everyone that she and Cruso are married so as to avoid uncomfortable questions. Susan does so and tries not to notice when the captain propositions her one night over dinner.

Eventually, Susan comes to believe that Cruso is dying of woe at having been separated from their island. She lies next to him and calls him “my Cruso”; she reminds him of the stars on the island, and wonders if they were “nearer the heavens” there. Susan begins to touch and lick and lie on Cruso, as if she is “swimming” in him. Sometimes, she fantasizes about returning to the island with a sack of corn to finally plant Cruso’s terraces.

Three days out from England, Cruso dies. The crew holds a small funeral, and Susan wonders if Friday is capable of understanding what death is. Susan wonders what the crew makes of her—and then she wonders what Mr. Foe, the “you” she has been addressing her tale to, makes of her. Ultimately, though, Susan realizes that it doesn’t matter what Mr. Foe thinks: “it is I who have disposal of all that Cruso leaves behind,” Susan brags, “which is the story of his island.”